Jaya responded first, naturally. “Where are you from, Anaïs?”
“Anouk,” Bas corrected.
“Sorry.Anouk.”
“Paris.”
“You grew up there? Whereabouts?”
“Le dix-septième.”
Cecilia watched them ruminate. One was hard-pressed to find a working model who did not know his or her way around Paris. The seventeenth arrondissement, depending on the neighborhood, could be solidly middle to upper-middle class or bohemian edgy. Anouk wasn’t giving away much. And the way she tossed her ponytail overher shoulder and angled her jaw up to the sky with such outward confidence told Cecilia everything. She was not a wide-eyed innocent fresh off the farm. She was not just a pretty face. She may have held her cards close to her chest, but she was playing the game.
“Alors, les filles, les garçons. On est prêt?” Didier appeared presently, his Nikon in one hand, a large butcher knife in the other. “Yes? Good. Someone asked for a knife? Boys, move from behind the bar,hein. You look like the GOs at Club Med. Quick, before we lose the light.”
Cecilia had been on enough sets to know when a shoot was going well, and when there was something above and beyond. Whether it was the chemistry between model and photographer or model and model, or the light and composition being just right. She was aware that sometimes a photographer’s lens caught magic. And that evening, on the terrace, it happened. Anouk eating watermelon out of Katrine’s hands. Katrine laughing, the juice dripping down her forearms. Bas holding back Anouk’s ponytail, while smiling surreptitiously at Jaya, who had sidled up behind Elliot, her arms around his bare torso, possessive. And Elliot, watermelon in hand, staring directly down the lens, tongue sticking out like an impish schoolboy. It was both intoxicating and playful. Suggestive—but not overtly so.
They were still talking about it at the group dinner later that night—on the terrace of one of the restaurants at the Querencia Bay Resort, the swanky establishment where the higher-ups were staying—how they’d managed to straddle the line between provocative and safe. And how they’d done so with the utmost taste.
“It’s more like the suggestion of something. Not too brazen or in your face. Didier, you are perfect at this,” Rafaella said, from her place beside him at the head of the table. Her dark curly hair framing her large features—big eyes, full mouth, a Roman nose. Cecilia found her striking.
“Yes,” Maren added from her seat, toward the opposite end. “That he is. Sexy, but not tawdry. And bravo to our exquisite talent!”With this, she raised her margarita high in the air, her eyes searching out specific members of the group.
There were twenty-three of them seated around two adjoined tables, mostly in their chosen cliques—the models, the crew, the various company and agency reps, and their numerous assistants. To Cecilia, this was always the most entertaining event of any location shoot. Like the huge family gatherings she’d grown up attending with her cousins during summers back in Jamaica. The balmy weather, the loud overlapping conversations, the clinking glasses, and laughter—even the Bob Marley pumping through the sound system, which felt slightly less authentic here but nonetheless comforting.
Didier looked up from wiping his wire-rimmed glasses, his puppy-dog eyes squinting to make out those at the far end. “What I love is all the different types. That they don’t look the same, but they complement each other. Sometimes the client, they only want one type because they want a certain look, but to me it’s boring. And this is not the way the world is right now. It’s changing. You go to Paris now and you see all these mixes because of the Arabs and the Blacks. Or you look at the Brazilians… lots of Brazilian girls coming up now. Or girls like Cecilia, and you don’t know what they are. You can’t trace their features to one place. This is where the world is going, this is where fashion has to go.
“I’ll always love a classic, timeless blond like Katrine, or Carolyn, or Claudia. But I think it’s even more exciting when you mix it up with faces we don’t always see, so we experience all kinds of beauty together. To me, it’s the difference between just the string section and the full orchestra.”
It was quiet for a moment, as the group digested Didier’s words.
“Does that make me a string, as well?” Bas laughed. He was sitting several seats to the left of Cecilia, in the corner with Katrine and Jaya. Likely a strategic choice. “I promise my feelings won’t be hurt. So long as I’m a cello.”
“Oh, Bas,” Sarah spoke up from her seat beside Jaya, “rumor has it you’re a double bass.”
“No. Bas is an Autoharp.”
“I was thinking medieval lute,” Elliot said.
“Making you… a…?” Bas asked.
“Tenor sax, naturally.”
“What are you, Didier?” Rafaella asked.
Cecilia often zoned out during such banter. She imagined Lorry listening in and being dismissive about the lack of depth and substance. Lorry could be judgmental. Strike that. Lorrywasjudgmental. So much so that since they’d begun dating, Cecilia frequently found herself questioning her choices. The books she read. The company she kept. The things she did for fun. Slowly they’d begun to change. She swapped out her Terry McMillan for Zora Neale Hurston, attended fewer90210watch parties with her girlfriends. She spent less and less time in the city. More time with Lorry’s family in Connecticut. She’d become someone who painted watercolors and planted herb gardens and read Nabokov and hiked. On their first date, Lorry had taken her to see a live symphony perform Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” as part of a summer concert series in a neighboring town, followed by Independence Day fireworks beneath the stars. Everything he did was different and unexpected, and she kind of liked it. Which was why she put up with the judgmental thing.
“Me?” Didier spoke up from the table head, rolling the sleeves of his chambray work shirt. The collar was somewhat frayed. “I’m a trombone. Ask Beatriz.”
“Ahh, no, no, no. Don’t ask me anything. I was young and stupid,” Beatriz said flatly, waving her hand in dismissal, a signature Hermès kerchief gracing her wrist. And then, zooming in on the young women around the table: “Stay away from French men, girls. At least until you’re thirty.”
Didier chuckled at that. He’d been married and divorced. Twice. Both times to models who were at their prime. One Norwegian, one British. Each had borne him a child. And for each it had ended not altogether well. At least that’s what Cecilia had cobbled together. Didier, like many fashion photographers, was a bit of a flirt. He also harbored a tinge of a God complex. That it was within his power to make any girl a star. But he was, for the most part, egalitarian and excellent at his job.
“Euh, putain!” Jean-Luc said then from the opposite corner, where his tall frame was wedged in between Maren’s production assistants and Sarah. “Don’t tell these girls lies. It’s a bad stereotype. Not allFrench men arehorrible.En plus,” he continued, lighting up a Philip Morris, “nous sommes les meilleurs amants.”
The table descended into laughter then. Kip and Stu, the production assistants, elbowing each other. The Italians challenging Jean-Luc’s proclamation and contending that they were better lovers than the French. Santiago making a case for the entire Latin population. Cecilia had heard this conversation myriad times. The ongoing debate about who, if anyone, was sexier than the French. Which ethnic groups made the best lovers. Et cetera. Typically, she would smile and nod vaguely without offering her personal take. It didn’t seem like a terribly professional conversation for a business setting, however relaxed. Furthermore, up to that point she’d only slept with two men, and both were American.
At some point, while Emilio, the VP of merchandising, and Sandro, the marketing exec who’d been ogling Katrine earlier on the terrace, grilled the various women about what physical traits they found hard to resist and what their thoughts were on dating older men, Cecilia caught Anouk’s eye across the table. The model had slouched in her seat beside Beatriz, and was twisting her long hair around her fingers, visibly bored, her eyes cast toward the sea. But on noticing Cecilia, she readjusted, corrected her posture, smiled, inviting. Cecilia found it hard to look away.
